FOR MANY years Stephen Sondheim’s I’m Still Here was the song that routinely ended Dame Shirley Bassey’s concerts, and for the girl from Tiger Bay, who has known grinding poverty, marriage break-ups, career setbacks and, most terrible of all, the loss of a child, it’s a statement of pure defiance.
And baring her soul in front of an audience is where Shirley has always felt most at home. On stage she gives herself completely to the emotion of the moment, but away from the spotlight the shutters go up. Her private life remains just that, private.
And during those times of difficulty in her life and career Shirley’s attitude has always been ‘the show must go on’. Only once, when confronted with the news no parent should ever hear, did personal distress bring Shirley to the brink of giving up her career. But she came through even that and, at the age of 85, is still performing, still giving her all to delighted audiences.
Tiger Bay no longer exists but was once a run-down district of Cardiff, an unruly dockland community where anyone could feel at home, even a young woman seeking refuge after having children out of wedlock in her native North-East, or a Nigerian sailor who had jumped ship and lived every day with the risk of deportation. These were Shirley’s parents, Eliza and Henry, who were married in 1926 and set up home in a two-storey terraced house on Bute Street, long since demolished.
Shirley was born
